


Better Late Than Never

by cagestark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Car Accidents, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, Famous writer!tony, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Suicide Attempts, Suicide Notes, This Fic Do Be Dark, Tony Stark Has Issues, fan!peter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21941905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cagestark/pseuds/cagestark
Summary: Peter Parker is the lucky fan to win a meet and greet with famous writer Tony Stark. But Tony Stark is a fucking mess.THIS FIC IS OFFICIALLY DISCONTINUED.Addicted_2_You has taken it over.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 23
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> And Merry Christmas to YOU
> 
> Aka I started another project that I will take twenty years to finish. But @starkerflowers/@flowersandteeth's prompts were just too fucking good.

Tony is awakened from a drunken, dreamless sleep by a tub of envelopes and small packages being upended over his head. He jerks upright with a shout from where he was slumped over his writing desk, upending the (empty) bottle of whiskey that had lulled him to sleep. Pepper stands over him, impeccable in every way he is not.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, pushing envelopes off of where they have pooled on his lap. “You could have taken my eye out, Peppercorn. What are you trying to do, perform Lingchi on me? What is all this?”

“Fan mail,” she says. Her voice is stern and unsympathetic. The first time she’d found him passed out drunk over his desk, she had panicked and nearly called for an ambulance. The next handful of times she had just covered him with a blanket and regarded him with sad eyes the next morning when she brought him coffee. But those were ten years ago. Not to mention, all in her first few weeks on the job— “Social media is revolting. You never answer fan mail, you never do Q&A’s, you haven’t done an interview in almost a decade.”

“Fuck this,” Tony mutters, opening one drawer. “Where’s my whiskey?”

“In your bloodstream, I’d imagine. Don’t brush this off, Tony. Sales are waning. We need to make some serious changes in our PR or I’ll be putting in my two-weeks’ notice.”

That gets Tony’s attention. Pepper hadn’t threatened to quit after his last book when he’d killed off one of the most popular characters (one of his personal favorites, may she rest in fictional peace) and the public had flipped their shit. She hadn’t threatened to quit years before that when she walked in on him hunched over his desk with a straw to his nose, three sheets to the wind on far more than just whiskey. She has the disposition of a mountain: unflinching and ever-enduring.

“You mean it,” says Tony.

“I mean it.”

His shoulders sag. He glances around the room: the mess, the junk, the empty alcohol bottles, the half-finished manuscripts. There’s a strange feeling in the back of his throat, acidic, like he might throw up. Or cry. When his mouth opens to say something sarcastic, something about not letting the door hit her on the way out if she expects him to play nice with the media, all that comes out is a broken: “I can’t lose you, Pep.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder. “You will. If you don’t make some changes. Okay?”

Maybe this is what it means to be balanced on a knife’s edge, where one way ends in pain and the other ends in terminal inconvenience. But he knows which one he has to pick. His whole life is just a big inconvenience, but pain? Tony has spent enough time with his hand flat against the stove’s burner to know that he’d rather die than feel it again, rather die than lose one of the only people left who can stand him.

He picks up the closest letter and tears it open, blinking heavily to clear his eyes. Pepper leans down to press a kiss to the crown of his head and then gags. “Take a shower, when you get the chance,” she mutters, smiling.

-

The letters start off by being good for one thing: his ego. Adoring fans have been writing to his penname and business address for decades since he put out his first super-hero novel, titled IRON-MAN. Pepper has chosen to give him recent fan-mail, considering he’s spent so long ignoring it that if he were to answer them in order of reception, he might encounter fans who didn’t even remember the letters once sent. Or ones who were dead.

They are all variations of the same thing. The handwriting changes, gentle feminine cursive to childish scrawling to neat block lettering, but the message is usually the same. DEAR MR. POTTS. I’VE READ EVERY BOOK YOU’VE EVER WRITTEN. I GOT YOUR NAME TATTOOED ON MY ASS. IRON-MAN IS MY HERO. I’VE NEVER READ PROSE AS LOVELY AS YOURS. WHAT IS YOUR SECRET?

At Pepper’s request, Tony drafts a generic letter to send in response, something about how he can’t respond personally to every letter but he wants them to know that he’s read what they’ve written and ‘holds it close to his heart’.

“It’s good,” Pepper approves. “Sign them yourself.”

“Good?” Tony says. “I was joking—this letter is trash. Anyone who knows me would see this for the sarcasm it is—”

“Then thank God none of the fans know you,” Pepper responds coolly.

She has a point. Tony has existed in relative seclusion since he first began publishing his works at 24. After twenty years, he’d managed to remain mostly anonymous. A pseudonym does most of the work, including non-disclosure agreements for his employees. Any time a presence is required, he sends Rhodey or Happy or Pepper even. Theory pages abound on the internet, sites devoted to finding out who the real AE POTTS is. Even though one picture leaked of him during the early 2000’s (a grainy godforsaken thing that didn’t even show his best angle), there were still some disbelievers. One popular conspiracy theory is that AE is Pepper, considering Tony stole her last name to use as his own.

Maybe that’s why his declining image in the media bothers her so much.

A week later, Tony’s hand has a cramp the way it hasn’t since he was a little boy learning to write his letters. Freehand has never been his specialty—it’s far too slow for the way his mind works, bounding a sentence, a scene, a chapter ahead. Signing so many letters is going to freeze his hand in a claw like position. He’s sure of it.

Then Pepper drops the next bombshell on him: the contest.

“It goes against everything I’ve been working so hard to do for the last twenty years,” Tony shouts at the zenith of their argument. “I do not want to be known! I don’t want the fame; I just wanted the goddamn fortune, is that too much to ask for?”

“Times have changed,” Pepper says through her teeth. She holds her own, spine straight. She hasn’t shirked away from his angry outbursts ever, not even when they were children growing up together in Manhattan. “I’m not asking you to do a 20/20 Special. I’m not asking for an interview on Ellen. I’m asking for you to meet with one fan. Have a goddamn lunch with them. If you can’t handle that, then you can kiss your fortune goodbye. Mark my words.”

Tony marks them. He fucking marks them, okay? When he’s drinking himself blind, locked in his office (good luck getting in now, Pep), they ring around his skull like a dime in the dryer. Sometime around dawn, she picks the lock on the door and mops his brow while he vomits in the tiny trashcan beside his desk.

“I’m not doing this to torture you,” she says with uncharacteristic tenderness. Her hand on his forehead occasionally rifling through his greasy hair is not what’s making his eyes prickle with tears—it’s the vomiting. Honest. He’s not that touch-starved. “You know that, right? I hate seeing you like this.”

“I know,” he chokes miserably, gagging again. So he agrees to the Willy Wonka Initiative. Pepper puts out the word that the infamous AE POTTS will be selecting a single fan to meet face to face. Anyone eighteen or older is eligible to participate, as long as they write a letter explaining why they should get it blah blah blah. A golden ticket might have been funner. At least then Tony might have had an excuse to wear the tacky purple suit and tophat.

In the meantime, Pepper reveals that she’s been having Happy screen his mail to only show him the happy letters—figures. His hate mail isn’t extensive, but it certainly exists, having increased exponentially since he killed off Natasha in the last novel.

FUCKING MYSOGINISTIC ASSHOLE, Cheryl from Newport tenderly writes. YOU HAD ONE GOOD FEMALE CHARACTER, AND YOU KILLED HER OFF. I HOPE ANOTHER WOMAN NEVER LETS YOU BETWEEN THEIR LEGS AGAIN AND YOUR DICK SHRIVELS OFF.

Tony thinks that’s pretty succinct. He posts it up on his desk propped up against the last picture ever taken of him and his mother. Killing off Natasha had been an idea he’d personally revolted against for months. Sure, it made sense that sensitive, strong Natasha would be the one to sacrifice herself in order to stop the villain from succeeding in wiping out half the universe. It made sense for a woman to be the one to give her life to protect others.

After all, hadn’t his own mother died trying to protect Tony?

The weekend after the contest drops on their social media platforms, Pepper texts to tell him that it’s being received far, far better than they might have ever hoped for. Already dozens of letters had been received, letters which must have been penned and mailed just hours after the news had spread.

 **Joy** , Tony texts back.

 **I haven’t told you the best news** , she says. That’s how Tony knows that the next news will be the worst news, absolutely the worst news of all. **You get to pick the fan.**

-

“Any letter catching your eye?” Pepper asks him over lunch in his office.

“They’re all the same,” Tony laments. Even his own ego can only take so much stroking. After a while, the fan mail has become mostly routine and lackluster, though he keeps opening it, keeps signing the response letters, keeps sending them out. “I’m going to end up picking one at random, Pep.”

“I don’t care how you pick,” Pepper says. “As long as you do—and as long as you’re ready to suffer with the consequences of your choice.”

“Suffer? God, I love the light you bring into my life. The unending optimism. The unparalleled faith and trust in me.”

Her eyes glitter even as they roll. “If you like me so much, you can buy lunch next time.”

Tony snorts, taking a large bite from his burger. “Gold digger.”

“I’ve seen your taxes, Tony. These days, there isn’t much gold to dig for.”

“Ouch, kill shot.”

-

The letter arrives only one week before the contest deadline. In the top drawer of his desk are three other letters from potential winners, mostly picked at random, sometimes because Tony likes their handwriting, sometimes because they say something funny that actually makes him laugh. When he opens up the letter from Peter B. Parker, he scans the first lines not intending to be impressed.

_Dear Mr. Potts, Peter writes._

_I’ve written you so many letters that it should be easy by now. I don’t know why my hands are shaking. Maybe I’m nervous because I know for certain that this one, someone will actually read._

_I received my first copy of IRON-MAN when I was eight years old—yes, a little bit heavy for a kid that age, but my parents had just died unexpectedly in a car accident. My aunt and uncle took me in, and my uncle gave me his first edition. Iron-man’s story was one of the only things that got through to me as a kid. His struggle to come to terms with losing his own parents, his loneliness, his fear. The way he overcomes all of that and still goes on to do good…yeah. It meant a lot to a grief-stricken kid. Obviously._

_Pretty much every birthday and Christmas, I end up receiving one of your books as a gift. My family and friends know me so well, I have nearly a half-dozen copies of AVENGERS (it’s one of my favorites). The things you write about are so close to my heart, so close to some of the experiences I’ve had in real life. My struggle with mental illness. My abuse and neglect. And the way you write these things makes me think…fear, I guess…that maybe you know something about them too._

_I would love to get to meet you and talk about your incredible books. I’d love to get to know you. Not going to lie, as a fanboy, I’d probably be happy to just sit at the same table with you and have a meal. I’ll buy. We don’t even have to talk (okay I swear I’m not as desperate as I sound!). I’m sure you’ve received so many awesome letters, and I know that the fan you pick will be so, so lucky._

_(Every letter I write to you, I ask if you could please return my book. It’s been five years since I sent it. I’m sure you don’t even have it anymore, maybe you threw it away from the start. But if you do have it, even if you don’t pick me to win the contest, it would mean so much if you sent it back. When I mailed it to you in Jan. 2014, my uncle was still alive. He’s gone now…anyway it’s one of the only things of his that I have left.)_

_Your fan always,_

_PETER._

_PS: please disregard the last letter I sent…obviously._

Tony rereads the letter twice. He feels a swirl of emotion in his stomach, not dissimilar to the queasiness after a long night of drinking. This—this is what he sacrificed by being so closed-off from his fans. While he’d known that his fans were real and obviously human, a part of him had never felt the magnitude of it before. These are people with feelings and experiences. This Parker kid (a self-proclaimed fanboy) lost his parents too, and far younger than Tony had. In a car accident.

Maybe Peter hadn’t been there, hadn’t been in the car, hadn’t watched his ~~mother~~ parents go up in flames, but it’s still a tragedy all in its own right. And all at eight years old. Jesus Christ. This kid has been looking up to him for ten years and more, and he had no fucking idea that kind of dysfunctional altar he’d been worshiping at.

Tony goes into the private bathroom connected to his office and gags up—nothing. Drool. But it still leaves his mouth slimy, so he brushes his teeth until he’s spitting pink into the sink, and when he catches sight of the haphazard reflection in the mirror, he pities it. He leans forward to touch foreheads with it, auto-intimacy. Do better, some voice in the back of his head says, but it’s not his voice.

Happy picks up his cellphone on the first ring. Of the ninth call.

“What do you fucking want, Tony?” he hisses into the receiver. “I’m at the movie theater seeing that new Star Wars. You made me go out into the lobby—”

“Then I’m doing you a favor,” Tony says, cracking open the cap on a sparkling water. “Look, I have important questions, I wouldn’t have called otherwise. My fan mail—how much of it has Pepper kept?”

“Jesus, how should I know? Totes and totes full, at least—”

“Brilliant—”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself? I’m missing the movie!”

“Didn’t I say you’re not missing much? I’m asking you because Pepper will make me do it myself: I need you to find specific letters from one fan: Peter B. Parker. Address is Queens, but he could be from anywhere. I’m also especially interested in acquiring a package he sent me in January 2014.”

“Christ, could you be any more mysterious?” Happy mutters. “Text me the details you bastard, I’m not missing another moment of Mark Hamill.”

-

It turns out that Pepper is not only a saint in all ways previously mentioned, but she is a saint in this as well: his fan mail from the last ten years has been saved and meticulously organized by month and year of reception. Happy comes to Tony’s office in the city the next day with a package, the outside brittle but address clear.

The writing is the same script as the letter newly received from Peter, though the handwriting has become more mature over time. Neater. Confined. No more hasty slant from an enthusiastic hand. The kid’s contest entry is in the top drawer of Tony’s desk—the previous potential winners are now the cherries on top of the reject pile. His stomach is heavy as a stone while he tears open the five-year-old package.

Out tumbles a pre-addressed package that was meant to carry the book back to its owner, back to Peter. Then, one first edition of IRON-MAN, the cover a little tattered, the spine creaky. Also included is another letter, torn from a spiral notebook. He opens it with shaking hands.

DEAR MISTER POTTS

I KNOW THAT GETTING A RESPONSE FROM MY LETTERS IS A LONG SHOT, BUT I’M REALLY HOPING THAT YOU’LL AUTOGRAPH THIS COPY OF IRON-MAN AND RETURN IT TO ME. IT IS MY UNCLE BEN’S…

It goes on to describe how his Uncle’s birthday is coming up and Peter hopes to give the autographed book to his Uncle. Tony reads with a heavy heart, knowing now that Tony hadn’t bothered even opening the package, hadn’t tried to sign it—and even if he had, Ben hadn’t lived long enough to celebrate his next birthday. What a son of a bitch Tony is.

For the first time in three months, Tony goes home.

Most days he stays at the space he rents in the fancy Manhattan building, the one that holds his office and Pepper’s own workspace as well as the other people who work for him (Happy, Beck, Rhodey). The mansion outside Manhattan belonged to Tony’s father and his mother. When his mother had still been alive, it had been a cold place that he had endured staying at for her sake. After his mother had died, it had been a torture chamber, or worse—a stale, suffocating tomb.

Then Howard had died and somehow left it to Tony (probably out of some misguided duty to ‘keep it in the family’). Tony made a personal habit to visit it infrequently and stay there even less often; but Pepper maintains it for him, has it cleaned, keeps it safe. Uses it as storage, Tony knows. For his fan mail.

It takes up three entire rooms, floor to ceiling clear totes labeled with months and years. Just looking at it makes Tony feel small, ashamed of how little he cared about interacting with his fans. It’s no wonder sales were down. Searching for Peter’s letters would be like looking for a needle in a haystack—but he has to do it, and he can’t let Happy bear the brunt of the weight anymore either. This is on Tony.

So he begins pulling totes from the room and scattering their contents on the oaken table and floors of the dining room. Five hours and seven totes later, and Tony still has no letter from Peter.

Pepper finds him at midnight. She comes bursting in through the front door—Tony can hear the sound of the door colliding with the wall from the force she’s used—shouting his name. The hysteria in her voice chills him to the bone. It’s worse than the tone she uses when Tony fucks up; this is the tone she uses when there’s a Tragedy, when something is Wrong.

She finds him in the dining room surrounded by letters, kneeling up from where he was slumped on the floor. He must be a sight, but she is one too, her hair a mess, her eyes red. When she sees him, all the breath goes out of her, one hand clutching at her breast as the other grabs the back of a chair for support.

“Jesus, Pep, what’s happened? Is it your father, another heart attack—?”

“Why don’t you ever answer your goddamn phone, you bastard!” She says through heaving breaths. “You don’t leave the office for weeks and suddenly no one can find you, you won’t pick up your phone—”

It takes a long moment for the pieces to connect.

“Oh Christ,” Tony says, chidingly. “What, you were scared for me?”

She slumps into one chair and puts her face into her well-manicured hands. Tony drops back onto his ass. He’s not a good man, not a sensitive man. The last woman who had cried in front of him was his mother, and look at all the ways he had failed her. But the longer he sits letting Pepper cry, the more it feels like bamboo shoots growing under his tender fingernails. Fuck it. He gets up, knees creaking, and goes to her.

They sit side by side at the dining table no one has eaten at in twelve years. Pepper leans into him, her thin shoulders shaking. Shame makes his own eyes burn, because he thought what did she have to be afraid of? But maybe she saw his car in the driveway of the unhappy home he avoids and assumed that he’d come here to Hemingway himself. Maybe she sat in the drive steeling herself to come into the sight of his body.

“I’m going through the fan mail,” Tony says at last.

“I can see that,” she says. Her scathing tone drips with tears.

“I’m okay, Pep,” he says. He’s not sure if it’s true. He’s not sure if he’s been okay ever since he blinked awake upside down and suspended by the seatbelt in the back seat of his mother’s Cadillac, glass littering the roof (and the roof had become the floor, then, see? Because they were upside down), the smell of gas and smoke in his nose). Maybe he’s not okay. Maybe it’s all a fucking lie, but he’s not going to off himself. Not when there’s a mystery afoot. “I promise.”

She nods, one damp hand reaching out blindly for his. It’s an awkward angle to hold hands at, but he doesn’t complain. And awkward or not, it feels nice to be touched in a kind, even platonic way.

“What are you looking for?” Pepper asks at last, wiping at the wet, swollen skin beneath her eyes.

“Why? You want to help?” Tony asks.

“Might as well,” she says. “I always do your heavy lifting, don’t I?”

-

With Pepper’s help, they find the first letter. Somehow the Willy Wonka Initiative has reversed until Tony feels like a kid, ripping open chocolate bars, desperate for a glimpse of gold. At dawn, a cry echoes in the dining room startling Tony from where he was slumping against a tote, dozing.

“I’ve got one, Tony!” Pepper shouts. She’s barefoot, her panty hose taken off and folded on the table, her sensible jacket removed and slung over the back of a chair. Her rumpled shirt and tendrils coming free from her ponytail reveal how much energy she’s been putting into this with him—maybe to make up for her emotional outburst earlier, maybe like a mother humoring a child’s singular beneficial interest. “From Peter B. Parker, address is Queens, same as before.”

“What’s the date?” Tony asks. He slips in a pile of letters from last August and nearly breaks his neck. Wishful fucking thinking.

“Last May. Here—”

Tony takes the letter and collapses in a chair, his lower back grateful for the support. He recognizes Peter’s handwriting as he tears the letter open, and he can feel Pepper’s presence over his shoulder, reading along with him.

This letter is different from the others. Tony knows it right away. The first indication should have been the date; Tony’s most recent novel dropped early May of last year. His most controversial work to date, with praise glorious and venomous in kind. Which way did the scales tip when it came to Peter, Tony wonders.

_I know that you won’t read this. I’ve written you twice a year since I was ten years old, and you’ve never written back. I don’t blame you. I’m sure you’re busy—I guess I just needed to get these words down somewhere, so that they exist, so that somewhere there is a record of me after I’m dead._

Tony reads the rest in a dazed blur. At one point, Pepper’s hand lifts to press against her mouth, but still they read on, huddled together for convenience and then for comfort.

In the letter, Peter describes the tragedy of his uncle’s death and how he felt personally responsible, and how after months of guilt, when he’d read about Natasha’s sacrifice, he’d decided to take action. Against himself.

 _If someone’s death can do so much good in the world,_ Peter wrote with shaky script. _Then maybe mine could too. I’m not deluded or anything. I know that I’m not a superhero and that I’m not fighting against some sanctimonious super villain. But I feel like if my death could make May’s life easier, then I have to do it._

“Jesus. Tony, don’t read this—” Pepper reaches out for the letter but Tony nearly rips it in half trying to keep it away from her.

 _It’s not just for May,_ Peter admits. _I’m ready to stop hurting, too._

Peter signs off, for good. Only it hadn’t been for good—Peter’s most recent letter had obviously proven that, and hadn’t he written it himself? _Ignore my last letter, obviously_ , he’d said. Something must have changed Peter’s mind, but one thing was clear: it hadn’t been Tony. Because Tony had been so self-absorbed, so tangled in his own grief and ego and addictions he hadn’t even read the letter. If Pepper hadn’t saved it, then it might have been destroyed, no record left of Peter’s words at all.

“Tony,” Pepper says. She takes the letter from his fingers and he lets it go. His hands are numb. “This isn’t your fault. Peter obviously was unstable—he’d just watched his uncle being murdered in front of him. No one in their right mind would read Natasha’s death and think that you were encouraging them to take their own life.”

“I know that,” Tony snaps. Lying. Then: “I’m not an idiot, Pep.”

Maybe the biggest lie of all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't fair at all, is it? 
> 
> This story is OFFICIALLY DISCONTINUED. 
> 
> However, I am willing to transfer property of it/the idea of it to another writer in the fandom should anyone feel interested and reach out. I'm posting the last chapter that I have written and then I'm ducking out to work on other fics :( sorry!

The next letter dated eight months before the last is much more upbeat. Peter is young and enthusiastic. He seems to view these letters to Tony as a cathartic release, a diary of sorts (the one benefit about never receiving any interaction back; it has lured Peter into a sense of anonymity—like he is screaming into the void.  _ Tony’s  _ the void). He reads about the mundane life of a high schooler, doing the math in his head to piece together that Peter must be 21 to 22 years old now. 

Most intriguing of all is what Peter signs off with—his social media handle.

Curiosity killed the cat, sure, but while genetically cats and humans are way too similar for comfort? —well, Tony’s willing to roll the dice. Five minutes later, he has downloaded the Tumblr app to his phone and made a username. Not his real name, not even his pseudonym, something nice and untraceable.

He enters the screen name into the search bar—pbparker99—and like a Californian miner, Tony strikes gold. The profile is dark with a black and white photo of the Brooklyn Bridge as the header, but the profile  _ picture  _ is what interests Tony the most. He’s been desperate to put a face with the name, to be able to fill in the characteristics of the blank Peter-shaped-figure in his mind. Now he can. And while he’s been imagining Peter as some permanently eight-years-old sexless fan, that all changes. 

Peter is obviously an adult. Peter is  _ attractive _ . There’s no baby fat in a face made of that many angles, but the youthfulness shines through all the same. The lips are thin but shapely, brows flat and wild, chin strong and just a little clefted. His hair is a wild mess, a chaotic crown of curls. The expression gives him a sad, brooding air, a contrast to the upbeat letters Tony’s received (except for—and he can hardly say it even in his head, can hardly acknowledge it as a suicide letter).

His profile description reads: Certified Potthead//Antis can go lay in traffic// RIP NATASHA//21/m/bi/. Jesus Christ, kids these days have no self-preservation. Tony nearly has the kid’s full name, sex, year of birth, sexuality, and place of origin (if anyone else is smart enough to see that picture of the Brooklyn Bridge for what it is). After scrolling through the posts, he puts more pieces together.

Peter B. Parker is an undergraduate at MIT.

He works at a local bistro.

He has friends: MJ and Ned.

He has an asshole who stalks his blog (two if you count Tony, but that’s a problem for another day), and God, Tony hopes the bully’s name isn’t really  _ Flash _ .

The kid really is a Potthead, too—that’s what Tony’s fans call themselves, not to be confused with Potterheads, which is the apple to his fandom’s orange. He wasn’t sure what else he’d been expecting, considering this is the same kid who sent him two letters a year since he was young.

The first time Tony sees ‘AE’ come up on Peter’s blog, his heart squeezes. That’s when he knows, when a series of realizations comes over him that bowl him down one after the other: he’s in over his head, because he  _ likes _ this kid, likes him in the way no damaged man of 40 ever should like a kid half his own age. And Tony destroys the things he likes, destroys the people he comes to love. He’s the antithesis of Midas.

He’s going to fuck this up. Just wait.

-

Peter defends Tony’s good anonymous name online against the people who call him an asshole, a misogynist, a hack. Most of those things are true, but Peter defends him all the same when he can and admits to being neutral in some of the other aspects.  _ Nobody wishes he would interact with his fans more than I do lmao, _ Peter says once. _ But who knows. Maybe the guy has anxiety or something. _

_ Are you going to enter the contest? _ Anonymous asks. _ I have to _ , Peter says.  _ If I don’t try, I’ll never forgive myself. _

News hasn’t yet dropped who the winner is yet; the deadline for the contest is a few days away, but Tony already imagines what the posts might be like once Pepper contacts Peter to say that he’s going to be transported to Tony’s mansion outside Manhattan to meet him. His ego flexes, ready to expand at a moment’s notice.

In the meantime, Tony soaks in every post of the younger man’s, his body jolting like he’s been electrified when a new post appears as he refreshes the blog. Sometimes the green indicator light appears at the top of the kid’s profile, telling Tony that he’s online, literally on Tumblr at that very fucking moment. Tony could just send him a message, could just say, I am AE to see what his reaction would be.

But he just sends an anonymous ask instead.

_ So, what, are you in love with this AE guy? _

_ Short answer? _ Peter responds.  _ Yes. _

Tony snorts.  _ You don’t even know him. _

_ You’re right _ , says Peter.  _ We have very limited personal content on AE, just the jacket on the inside of his books (that we know Pepper Potts wrote for him herself), and the few phone interviews he did back in the 90’s. We don’t even have a confirmed picture of him. So. Here’s a more accurate answer, I guess: I hold everything he’s written in very high esteem; in his interviews, he comes off as a very witty, thoughtful guy. Those are all good things. Very loveable. And if that super low quality picture we have IS him??? Damn daddy _

Tony chokes on his whiskey, coughing so hard that tears stream from his eyes and Beck from the office beside him comes to lean against the doorframe with his smug eyebrows all the way up, like if Tony is dying then it’s prime entertainment. He nearly does die, honestly. From the whiskey, that is. Not the daddy kink thing.

Okay, maybe both.  _ May _ be.

“You alright there, Tony?” Beck asks when the coughing dies down.

Tony flips him the bird. Rolling his eyes, Beck goes back into his own office. The guy is an asshole and he and Tony have set up Monopoly hotels on each other’s last nerves—but he’s one of the best accountants in New York City, and with the revenue from his bookwriting and his shares in his father’s company (though Uncle Obie offers to buy him out every Christmas), Tony needs Beck.

**Learn to be an accountant so that I can fire Beck** , Tony texts to Pepper.

**Want me to learn to be a heart surgeon too so I can perform your triple bypass when you have an inevitable heart attack?** she replies.

**Yes thanks for asking** , Tony sends. Then also:  **Fuck you.** Then at last:  **Meet at Di Fara’s Pizza for lunch? I’ve got some ideas for changes in our social media game.**

All she says is,  **You’re buying.**

-

“You look manic.”

“I  _ am _ manic.”

“Could you relax, please? This isn’t the kind of image you want to sell.”

“Actually, I could make an excellent case for why this is the perfect image for me to sell—talk about not judging  _ books _ by their covers, right? No? No laughs? Get it, because I’m an author?”

“…”

“Okay. You win. Will you—can you get my good angle, Pep?”

“What good angle?”

-

On the first of December, Tony closes his office door and sits at his desk. Pepper sits across from him, hair slicked back into a strawberry blonde ponytail. She looks far too smug at how Tony’s leg bounces restlessly underneath his desk. When he nods at last, Pepper reaches out to the phone desk that rests between them and dials a number.

It rings nearly a dozen times before someone picks up. Fabric rustles, a distant half-intelligible hello? before someone clears their throat and says with a cracking, effeminate voice, “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Pepper Potts. Am I speaking with Peter Parker?”

“This is him,” Peter mumbles around a yawn. “Sorry, did you say—?”

“I’m Pepper Potts, I’m the personal assistant of AE Potts,” Pepper says. Tony has his hand pressed over his mouth to smother any involuntary facial reactions—or to at least have them in the privacy of his own hand. Pepper’s eyes see too fucking much. “I’m calling in regards to the letter you submitted for the meet and greet contest.”

“Oh my God,” Peter mutters lowly.

Pepper smiles, a full grin of white, straight teeth, but her voice is appropriately polite with no hint of her mirth. “Tony read your letter and was very interested in meeting you, Peter. We’d love to pay for transportation on the twentieth of this month so that you can come to his private estate in Manhattan. It’s an all-expenses paid trip—”

“I’m sorry ma’am,” Peter breathes. “But who is Tony?”

Pepper points to Tony. Tony shakes his head. She points, firmer. Tony reaches out to slap at her finger, but she’s got the reflexes of a cat who’s spent twenty years working in a maelstrom. The silence goes on for so long while Pepper tries to prod Tony into speaking that Peter asks,  _ Ma’am? _

“Sorry, Peter—Tony is AE’s real name.”

“Oh my God.” There is furious rustling. If fanboying had a sound, it would be this one. “His name is Tony? That’s—that’s such a good name—”

“I’m sure if Tony were here right now,” Pepper says, glaring daggers and Tony, and yikes, if looks could kill. “He would be very touched to hear you say so. So what do you say, Peter? Can we work out the rest of these details?”

“Absolutely, oh my God!”

The rest of the call bores Tony with the mindless questions Pepper has to ask and the paperwork she’ll be sending him in the mail to have him sign and return at his earliest convenience, lest another participant be selected (as  _ if _ , Tony thinks, trying to create a teepee with the expensive pens that Obie always buys him for special occasions).

After they trade goodbyes and before Peter manages to hang-up, they heard an exuberant shriek that is cut off by the dial tone.

“Do you think he’s excited?” Pepper asks, eyes glittering.

-

Twenty minutes later, the social media changes drop. On his Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, his header changes—to a picture of the Brooklyn bridge. He’s a New York native, born and raised. He can get away with it. His profile picture is no longer the cover of his last book, but a picture of him. A real picture of him. Not grainy, no question of  _ is this really him? _ not like that one photograph they have of him walking out the back of a Barnes and Noble after signing books, Pepper trailing him. Added to his bio, just above ‘posts tagged PP by Pepper Potts’ he writes ‘posts tagged AE by…me’. From now on, Tony will be active on social media, taking time out of each day to respond to at least one fan.

**Big changes are coming** , Tony tweets.  **AE.**

When Pepper arrives in his office three hours later, Tony is at the window with the blinds open, notebook spread in his lap full of his absent minded scribbling. He’s been very closed-lipped to her about the next book, mostly because he felt like a boat lost at sea after ENDGAME. Even now, what he’s writing can’t be the next book of the series. Not when he keeps reaching for ways to bring Nat back to life.

_ Fan service _ , he thinks.

Pepper jolts him from his musings. He hasn’t seen her face so flushed and positive since THE WINTER SOLDIER—which some have called Tony’s last ‘good’ book. “You’re trending on social media,” Pepper says. “There have been half a dozen inquiries on whether you’re willing to do an interview, but I’m tabling that for now until we get a long-term strategy in hand. I meant what I said, Tony. I know how much this public stuff stresses you out, and that’s not my goal.”

“Pick the obvious choice and then the underdog, tell them if they can squeeze me in after Christmas and before New Year’s, I’ll do it.”

Pepper’s mouth opens, then closes. Her eyes narrow. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you making so much effort with this, after being such a stubborn ass for the last two decades?”

Tony closes his notebook and puts it in the drawer where Peter’s letters sit. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Pep. Just ride it. Metaphorically.”

Stepping back a few feet, Pepper closes the office door. When she turns around, the mistrusting skepticism has faded into a look he hates (somehow) even more than he hates the mistrust. It’s pity, her eyes sad and soft, her mouth tipped down.

“Tony,” she says, so gently, and that’s how he knows that what comes out of her mouth next will be something that he hates. “Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.” He means it, too. Hasn’t he proven in the last few weeks how far he will go to keep Pepper in his life? To hold on to this incredible, amazing friend that he’s had since childhood? He would move mountains for her. He would kill for her. He would stop drinking for her ( _ maybe _ ).

“Don’t sleep with Peter.”

“Done,” Tony says, relieved that that’s all she’s asking for. “For clarification purposes, you mean fucking him right? I’m allowed to sleep within a hundred foot vicinity of him should the occasion call for it, but I should keep my dick away from him?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“Then, done. I won’t sleep with Peter. Shouldn’t we make that conditional though? What if someone has a gun to my head and says they’ll shoot me if I don’t fuck Peter? Am I allowed to then?”

Pepper snorts. “Alright. Then you can sleep with him.”

“And if he ingests some strange bio-warfare that wreaks havoc on his physiology and the only way to save him is by putting my dick in his ass—can I sleep with him then?”

“Please do. I’d hate to have to deal with the press.” 

“And if I should by some chance fall madly in love with him, am I allowed to sleep with him then?”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Now you’re pushing it.”

-

Peter’s Tumblr posts in the hours after Pepper notifies him of his winning contest entry are the last thing Tony looks at before bed. More than halfway drunk, squinting at his phone in the darkness of his bedroom, he reads the excited crytyping and feels his mouth curl up. He falls asleep that way and wakes in the morning with his phone plastered to his sweating, naked chest.

-

As soon as Pepper receives documentation from Peter in the mail, Tony makes the official social media post announcing the winner of the contest. Ten days stand between him and meeting Peter Parker, and Tony finds himself nervous in a way he hasn’t ever been. While he knows that Peter is a fan (it’s not like the kid knows Tony creeps his social media, not like he’s pretending to be a fan to lure Tony into a situation he can use to then berate the man), the guilt gnaws away at him like moths at a sweater. 

If Peter read him the riot act, Tony would understand. Tony would deserve it. 

The days before Peter’s arrival are spent drinking until his hands stop shaking, then drinking once they start shaking again. He spends more time in his Manhattan mansion than he would like to, walking halls he hadn’t walked so often since his childhood, feeling the ghosts of the place call out to him. Feeling like a ghost himself. Pepper has the place professionally cleaned, and she even decorates for Christmas: tasteful additions, including a real tree that smells of pine and sap. 

“Is there a reason you’re drinking so much?” Pepper asks when Tony orders his second whiskey neat before their entrees have arrived. In three days, Peter will be on Tony’s doorstep. They’re out at dinner, meant to be celebrating the increase in book sales that have brought AE Potts back onto the Bestseller’s List even though he hasn’t written anything new in months. “Are these nerves? I’ve never known you to be nervous before.” 

“I’m not nervous. What do I have to be nervous about?” Tony asks. He points to the waiter. “Keep them coming or I’ll flip this table okay? I’m just kidding. I’m not going to flip the table. Honest. You should see the look on your face.” 

“I’m cutting him off,” Pepper says to the waiter, taking his glass and putting it out of his reach. “Don’t worry, he’ll behave.” 

“No promises!” Tony says (louder than he means to, if the stares of the other restaurant patrons means anything) to the waiter’s hastily retreating back. 

“Will you talk to me?” Pepper asks lowly. 

“Say I was nervous. Hypothetically. What would be the best way to remedy that?” 

“By talking about your worries with a close friend, maybe a PA-cum-confidant,” Pepper deadpans. 

“You took my close friend Glenfiddich away though.” 

Pepper sighs in that way that has crumbled mountains, that makes his shoulder bow and eyes drop to his plate where there is a lovely Caprese salad that he thinks he might throw up in ten minutes if he doesn't control his breathing. He tries again: “You’re right. I’m nervous. It’s been twenty years, and I’ve never really met a fan. This kid has been waiting to meet me for a decade. What if I’m--well, I know I’m not what he’s expecting. I just don’t want to fuck this up.” 

“Be yourself and you won’t,” Pepper promises. She taps the rim of his whiskey glass. “Not this version of yourself, though.” 

Tony just isn’t sure that another, better version of himself exists. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inquire about taking over in the comments or on tumblr @cagestark


	3. Chapter 3

This work has been officially adopted out! To see its continuation, please look to [addicted_2_you](https://archiveofourown.org/users/addicted_2_fandoms/profile)

**Author's Note:**

> comments and criticism welcome  
> find me on tumblr @cagestark

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Better Late Than Never](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26977204) by [addicted_2_you (addicted_2_fandoms)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/addicted_2_fandoms/pseuds/addicted_2_you)




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